I have been reading and re-reading this quote again and again

“Whatever the suffering is, it’s not to be endured, for God’s sake, not felt and never, ever accepted. It’s to be triumphed over. And because some things cannot be triumphed over unless they are first accepted and endured (indeed, some things cannot be triumphed over at all), the “story” must be told again and again in an endless pursuit of a happy ending. To be human is finally to be a loser, for we are all fated to lose our carefully constructed sense of self, our physical strength, our health, our precious dignity, and finally our lives. A refusal to tolerate this reality is a refusal to tolerate life, and art based on the empowering message and the positive image is part of this juvenile condition.”


--Mary Gaitskill

Two evil titans collide

Vegas Casinos Cancel Super Bowl Parties
CHRISTINA ALMEIDA
Associated Press

LAS VEGAS - Casinos are canceling Super Bowl parties and handing out refunds to thousands of people after the NFL threatened legal action against some of the biggest hotels in Las Vegas.

Several hotels received letters this week informing them that their parties were “unauthorized use of NFL intellectual property.” NFL spokesman Brian McCarthy said the league recently became aware of these large-scale parties planned in Las Vegas and other locations around the country.

“These establishments were attempting to charge admission for something we are offering for free, and we believe that’s a violation of a long-standing NFL policy that specifically prohibits mass out-of-home broadcasts,” McCarthy said.

A Super Bowl party inside a movie theater at the Palms was scrapped after the hotel received a letter from the football league on Jan. 23. The gathering usually attracts several hundred people, who enjoy hot dogs and beer and compete in games and raffle drawings for $39.99.

The Aladdin hotel-casino had to cancel its bash planned at the hotel’s 7,000-seat Theatre of Performing Arts after receiving the letter Friday, less than 48 hours before the big game. Officials were scrambling to find small TVs that they could place throughout the casino for guests wanting to watch the Super Bowl.

McCarthy dismissed claims that Las Vegas was being singled out, saying the NFL had sent letters to several locations in Boston, Charlotte and Houston. He said the NFL sent a letter to a Boston aquarium just before the AFC Championship game advising them not to broadcast the game.

“When we become aware of a potential violation, we take action,” McCarthy said. “It’s not a city issue, its a copyright issue.”

The NFL’s letter was particularly devastating to promoter Todd Krohn, who had organized a party at The Orleans hotel-casino that was expected to draw some 6,000 sports fans at $45 a ticket. He estimated his company, The T & J Trust, lost more than $100,000 as a result

“Our biggest problem with this was the late notification. If the NFL had made this decision, why didn’t they give us 30 days notice?” Krohn said. “We wouldn’t have scheduled the event. We wouldn’t have spent the money.”

Ecclesiastical news from all over

Our local church for young, wealthy people is called Rock Harbor. I’ve never been to this church, because it seemed too much like the one I used to attend in West L.A. where everyone was kinda crazy and then the pastor had to have a time out because of the adultery and then the other pastor took all the money and well folks thanks for playing.

True to form, Rock Harbor’s pastor had to have a timeout about a year ago for the adultery. He’s actually done exactly what you’re supposed to do in this situation: quit, apologize, put his own marriage back together, and do things other than being a pastor. Good job, Keith.

Rock Harbor itself is growing, which is what churches are supposed to do nowadays. They’re moving out of their rented quarters in the Senior Center into a new building.

The article in today’s paper about this quoted an official at the church whose title was “Director of Involvement”. This sounds to me like a character from C.S. Lewis’s That Hideous Strength but maybe that’s just me.

If anyone needs me, I’ll be passing a needle through the eye of a camel.

Mary Gaitskill on Secretary

The article from which yesterday’s quote was abstracted is here, thanks to tinymammoth.

Suburban pastoral

The eucalyptus trees still stand in line but the orange groves they shielded are gone. The arrowheads and chipped bones of Natives still sit under the muck of the Upper Bay. There’s a Goat Hill without goats. The old Rancho fills up with boxy little houses and the rabbits show up, surprised, outside the lobby of the Marriott.

Tumbleweeds fill a mall parking lot on a blustery day. A woman taking out her garbage confronts a coyote by the swimming pool. A hawk sits on the light pole at the top of the flyover between two freeways, waiting.

They’ve graded down the hills and sucked the water out of the land to put in the parking lot under the new mall. The foundations of the houses are buckling upwards with efflorescence from the concrete reacting with the acidic soil.

A perfect V formation of pelicans coasts silently over the balloons of a used car dealership. Possums amble distractedly down sidewalks past midnight, hissing at the occasional teenaged lovers in cars they pass.

Past the beach packed with humans and their happy trash, past the harbor bobbing with boats, past the bell buoy and the oil platforms, the sea surges and rolls on and on and on in an unimaginable blue distance, forever.